Despite being personally part of the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits, why did it take so long to pen your thoughts about a time that immensely impacted your life, especially since you’ve written books before this?
This is the first book I’ve wanted to write. It’s why I became a journalist and a writer. But it’s been extremely difficult (to write). I found certain parts of the story too difficult to negotiate. I began writing it seriously from 2000, but gave up after a few chapters. Meanwhile, other books from the Naxal heartland that I covered as a journalist for years were released. I’m thankful for the break they provided me from my story. I returned to my memoir after historian Ramachandra Guha told me to write it; he followed it by awarding it the New India Foundation fellowship. He mentored this book, gave me the confidence to return to it. I pushed my way through it.

A Kashmiri Pandit woman (Hindu living in Kashmir) peers through the window of her home in Srinagar in January, 2000. Many Pandits fled the Kashmir valley when the Muslim separatist campaign turned violent in the early 1990's and only a few thousand of them have remained. Pic/ AFP